The Null Device

2003/5/23

An interesting online research project investigating what makes a face beautiful. It looks at various hypotheses (that the most mathematically average faces are the most beautiful, that beauty is symmetry, and that infantile features account for beauty in female faces) using computer-generated morphed faces, and comes to some interesting conclusions (i.e., that while extremely asymmetric faces are considered ugly, symmetry by itself does not correlate with beauty).
Finally, it concludes that people subconsciously associate beauty with virtue, and that in this age of visual media, we are subject to a sort of "beauty pollution", being bombarded with images of artificially beautiful faces.
(via bOING bOING)

Apparently a frame in the new Matrix film shows
equates President Bush with Adolf Hitler, by showing an image of the President of the Free World beside one of the Nazi dictator. True Patriots across America are pig-biting mad and sure as hell going to boycott the damn piece of liberal filth.

Mind you, the article with the publication also has an Ann Coulter column, and a "related offer" ad for Bible-belt bowdlerised film rental outfit CleanFilms.com and another article blaming the Clinton administration for Osama bin Laden being at large, so maybe, just maybe, they're a wee bit biased.
(via NWD)

Nike release Black Liberation shoes. The shoes, undoubtedly sewn by the nimble fingers of children in south-east Asian sweatshops, bear the green, black and red Black Liberation flag of Marcus Garvey, originally a symbol of afrocentric nationalism and the struggle for justice, but since devolved into a hip-hop fashion statement/status symbol whose meaning is about as confrontational and controversial as "feeling good about yourself", or perhaps "just do it".

Remember when a lot of rappers suddenly started wearing those sweatbands with the red, black, and green colors? Everybody from Jay-Z to Lil Wayne was sporting them, then everybody else. Funny how no one bothered to discuss what the colors mean or who Marcus Garvey was or anything even remotely having to do with liberation. And now, instead of forking over a few dollars for a wristband, unsuspecting consumers will be spending three figures on some sneakers. Open your eyes y'all. We're getting pimped.

Wonder how long until we see white suburban kids wearing the green, black and red with their Fubu/DaDa thug jackets, perhaps justifying to themselves that their adolescent hormonal rebellion against their unhip parents mirrors the black revolutionary struggle against Whitey or something.
(via Die Puny Humans)

The latest in street fashion: the No-Contact Jacket, a fashionable women's jacket of "exo-electric armour" which, when armed, delivers a powerful though non-lethal electric shock to anyone who touches the wearer.

The jacket is designed for women only. Its small size and narrow armholes are intended to prevent men from using it as an offensive weapon. Whiton conceded that women could use it offensively, and that it would be hard for police to arrest anyone wearing one.